Rambles on a Colorado trip.

• Redeye flights ... ugh. I'm a zombie today after getting on a plane at just before midnight Denver time and arriving in Boston at about 5:30.
  
• Watched an elk soap opera unfold in Rocky Mountain National Park. There was a big male (massive rack of antlers) with his herd, and two younger males nearby in the grass lying low. One of them actually got up the nerve to get up and approach the herd, but big guy was having none of that and drove him off. At least one female in the herd seemed interested in the young bucks, though.
  
• Trail Ridge Road on a wet day is fascinating. Driving up through the clouds and eventually emerging above them, only to have them settle in again shortly thereafter.
  
• There are trees growing among the rocks in the Lawn Lake alluvial fan! (This is the remnant of a flood from 20-25 years ago; a dam burst, and the water roared down a gorge, dropping a fan of boulders, rocks, and sand when it came out of the canyon onto an open plain. meranthi, were you living in Estes for that?)
  
• My quasi-stepbrother got into the improv group at Kenyon College, where he's a freshman. Go Adam!
  
• I watched the video of Adam's high school production of Anything Goes (he was Billy). He's quite good.
  
• If anyone ever wants an indulgently expensive pedicure, I highly recommend Bella Fiore day spa in Denver (Cherry Creek North). The woman worked so hard on my dry, cracked, messy feet that she broke the pumice stone she was using.
  
• My apologies to tmcay and crossfire_ and anyone else I didn't get to see. Just didn't have much time.
  
• I suppose I should go do some work now.
  

Oh, and in the category of cool things...

It's not quite as cool as tahnan getting his name in the New York Times for his mad puzzle-solving skills, but apparently the "word fugitive" I sent to The Atlantic Monthly a while ago got into the October issue! ("Word Fugitives" is a column in which people suggest things there ought to be a word for, and other people send in often-punny suggestions. I offered the phenomenon of sending an e-mail saying that you're attaching something and then forgetting to attach it as something there should be a word for.) Unfortunately I can't link to it, because (a) the October issue isn't up yet, and (b) you now have to be a subscriber to get access to the content online. Guess I'll have to go buy a copy.